Still not sure where you are getting this from... In our game, when Edge is spent prior to the roll (for the exploding 6's) we generally, in any given game night, have multiple examples of exploding 6's, sometimes more than once, with dice pools ROUTINELY less than 18 dice... Even With Edge included in the roll...

The point is, if your Edge attribute is small, the reroll of failed dice is generally a better option (unless your original dice pool is equally small), if the Edge attribute is high... it is generally better to try for the exploding 6's... And that is just what it is (for either oprtion), an attempt to gain more successes by rolling more dice (edge pool first for the exploding 6's, or edge to roll failed dice)...

Very different rolls, for very different rates of success...

In our games I would say that RARELY is every pool double digit... I often have to default for a dice pool that is less than 3...

My Two Cents

Which will, over time cost SIGNIFICANTLY more for the software than buying a legal copy... 10 Months of use equals a Standard Program, and even then , you will continue to patch the software long after I have gotten my unlimited free upgrade...

Also, Access to such "Pirated" software is controlled by in-game access, if you do not have the access, you do not get the software... At character creation, you are only capped by availability and amount of money that you can spend... Any skillwire software you purchase at character creation will not degrade because it is Registered and copy-protected... and if you are thinking of cracking the software so that you can trade it with your team members who may also have skillwire systems, well then it no longer qualifies as Registered and now you will be paying an upkeep cost to maintain its rating...

Gee... I think that I am going to purchase the registered Activesofts for no upkeep... under your premise, you spent (50x4000) nuyen to obtain the cracked activesoft (for the 50 skills that you want)... each month you will then have to pay the same amount to keep their ratings at 4... so, how often do you receive 200,000 Nuyen for a group of runs in a single month's time (which must be duplicated each and every month)... this does not obviously add in the requirements for your monthly upkeep for your lifestyle...

All in all, Skillwires are good for rounding out some of those skills that you might need, but do not require a significant amount of concentration on... They are great for those times when you are infiltrating a Corp, and absolutely must have the one skill that you are using as a cover...

Could you use them for the Must Have Every Skill kind of guy... Sure, But you will never (over the long run) be as good as those whose primary skill set it is...

My Two Cents...

I made a movebywires 2 character using the old rules, and yeah she was pretty broken. But using the updated rules, As Max points out, skillwires have been converted into garbage. Skillsofts are just beyond the reach of most starting builds. Sure, they only cost 8 BP for a rating 4 skill, but you run up against the starting nuyen cap really quickly. Even if you're Born Rich, each rating 4 skillsoft chomps up 13% of your nuyen cap, and that hurts. It might be feasible to have a few, but you can no longer be Mr. Chiphead, with every useful skill under the sun. Gotta be a mage summoning task spirits for that (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

That said, I think that movebywires are still the clear best choice because a) they give double the reaction benefit and b) they are the only enhancements that stack with reaction enhancers. That said, however, it's really not that huge a deal because every race (basic race anyway) has an augmented reaction cap of 9. Your basic streetsam build with Wired Reflexes 2 will probably grab 5 reaction, and take the +2 from wires, and that's 7. Your Move By Wires person could spend a much larger chunk of nuyen on reflexes and end up with potentially +7 to Reaction, letting them start with reaction at only 2. This, however, would take a huge bite out of the nuyen cap, and would save a lousy 30 points on Reaction, minus the cost of Restricted Gear. And remember, initiative dice are only dice. Sammy with 7 Reaction might still go before sammy with 9 reaction. The odds aren't in their favor, but the question when making good builds is always a matter of efficiency. Any time you max something out, you're diverting a large chunk of resources to do it. Is the extra scratch worth it for +2 reaction and some skillwires? Before the skillsoft price hike, yeah. After? Not so much.

Also, I don't tend to think much of the Dodge boost from movebywires. The truly twinky samurai uses Gymanstics anyway, and you can scrounge more bonus dice for Gymanstics than you can for Dodge (off the top of my head, +3 for Synthacardium, +1 for enhanced articulation, +2 from the natural athlete quality thingy, and +1 for refelex recorder), in addition to being able to run, jump, and dance like a maniac using Gymnastics.

Regarding the pirated software thing, Unwired makes my head hurt, so I don't know anything about that whole argument >.<

I want to make a skillwire character, but I don't see him being overly powerful (or even very usefull). I was thinking of a phys ad with all 8 attribute boosts at 1 and things like multitasking and nimble fingers. then get the skillwires at 4 (+restricted gear) get what skillsofts i can. top that with a few real social skills, probably leadership and negotiation, and a bunch of drugs. cram, betameth, snuff, the chewing gum for +1 perception.

I was thinking a corporate lower management wage slave that "talks the talk" with all the management lingo and double speak (think 80's power broker). He's really good at seeming important, but thats about it. I guess I like funny characters more than powerfull ones.

You can only get Attribute Boost for physical skills. You could make a Mystic Adept with Increase Attribute spells for your mental attributes, however.

Several notes:
1) I am not sure what you are assuming about the skill level, but if skillsofts decayed, they would decay at 1 level per time, so a level four would still cost only 1/4 per time period.
2) However, the errata make it clear that decay of pirated skillsofts is up to the GM, and should be slow in any case. (once every 3 to six months if I read it right and the GM wants it to happen.)
3) With the new pricing in SR4A, it is hard for skillsofts to make reasonable PC sense unless they are pirated copies. Presumably not personalized (while the RAW does not outlaw that,e ven a GM who allows pirated skillsofts would probably balk at a pirated, personalized item. Where did you pirate it from?) If the GM outlaws pirated skillsofts then they are clearly not too unbalancing given that they are not a big cost saver any more.

Yours,
Joel M. Halpern

1) That would still be 50k per period, which is a rather hefty recurring investment.
2) At 5 months those softs cost you a high lifestyle.
3) When you have a built that runs into the BP cap before running into the money cap they still make sense. Having the option to use every active skill out there is a great plus and that didn't change. You still can buy a necessary skill you need exactly when you need it. Mr. Johnson might give you a soft for the next run etc. They do exactly what they are supposed to do and at their new pricing no one needs to fear being made useless by them.

I agree, that's a pretty good summation of why skillwires are worthwhile. They don't make you into Mr. Swiss Army Knife with the new price, but they do let you pick up whatever skill you want without needing to spend your karma on it. The fix does something important: it stops skillwires from being no-brainers. They are good, but not mandatory.

Or,

Rent your skillsoft from Netflix or Blockbuster. Go for the "you can have 3 checked out at any time" plan.

There is probably a lucrative, legitimate business opportunity here. A few, from skillsoft rentals to a different kind of temp agency, where you rent not only the skillsoft but the guy with the skillwires.

Shadowrunners might not like having their rental histories on file, which opens possibilities for lucrative semi-legal business opportunities....

Anyway,

Ken

Bingo...

That is an entertaining idea...

Perhaps somebody in here can answer a conceptual question:

I don't understand why skillwire is necessary to process skillsofts that are primarily cerebral (and honestly more along the line of general knowledge skills). Using Software skill as an example, there's almost no physical input necessary in the world of Shadowrun to be proficient at understanding and using computer software. Skillwire is a muscle controller; it translates movement signals from the brain, and acts upon them. But what if those signals aren't necessary for the particular skill? As noted before, software skill has almost nothing to do with movement. So why is it that all active skills require skillwire when knowsofts never do, knowing that skills like software, computer, and data search would realistically not require the 'neuromuscular controllers' SR4 and Unwired go on about? Why is it that these skills don't have an exception to be listed as knowsofts while still adding dice?

because even if you do know how to do something, does not mean you CAN do it.
Even if i think my english is good enough, based on read/write skill, my pronuncitation is still bad as fuck all.
Even if you do, conceptually, know how to code something, does not mean your fingers will move to the right places all the time.
granted, with coding taking place solely in the head with implanted comlinks and full VR, that is a bit of a stretch . .
So let's go with some technobabble. Your neuro-kinesics don't match. The Knowing Centre is not the same as the doing centre of the brain.

And because i suck at techno-babble: Game-Balance ^^

Typing is trivial, especially in a world where physical keyboards are nearly useless. And even at that, typing typing proficiency is still a trivial matter when it comes to writing software, as editing code is done in spurts with little line-by-line composing. Applications of computer science are about 95% 'knowing center'. The 'doing' can be done by just about anybody.

Yep. Game balance is right.

Not anymore, Wired Reflexes know explicitly state that they stack with reaction enhancers.

omg! Thanks for pointing that out! That makes me glad. It was a bit irksome that reaction enhancers said "these do stack with other initiative boosts," and then EVERY other initiative boost was rewritten to say it doesn't stack with reaction enhancers >.< Thanks to Catalyst for fixing that, I'm pretty sure it was a booboo made by FanPro back in the day...

I love this idea, and Unwired makes reference to it, but gives 0 rules on costs and availability, etc.

Which totally sucks... a Monthly recurring cost of say a couple thousand nuyen with a short time period to swap skills (say 2 combat rounds) means you can subscribe to skillflix and have 3 skills out... and if you need another one, you go full defense (or whatever) and wait a couple rounds for them to download and install into you and for the old ones to uninstall and return.

Any percieved imbalance can be done away with through availability - that's what it's for. This is almost as ludicrous as banning one hacking program from becoming a complex form.

That's sort of true. Characters do get their big-ass chunk of nuyen in chargen, and are unlikely to have such a huge pile of money ever again. By putting activesofts at higher avail, we'd stop people from cheesing them out. But still, at 3k per rating point, they're not prohibitively expensive for a runner in practice. Availability would only solve the chargen issues. Any semi-extended campaign would still see the skillwires person becoming a veritable swiss army knife, especially compared to those who didn't purchase skillwires. No matter how you slice it, the old price makes skillwires, and thus move-by-wires, a no-brainer. Skillwires are still good with the increased price, but now must use brain for think about. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Ditto... You already DON"T need the Wires for Knowsofts or Lingusofts...